Week 2: Sleeper hitters | Two-start pitcher rankings | Waiver Wire
Oh my gosh, baseball.
We have data now, official and actual.
Actionable? Possible, but I'd say "eventual."
It doesn't stop the impressionables from sitting down with their Lunchables and click, click, clicking to make their rosters more tolerable.
It's inescapable but often regretable, making for moments most teachable, the hottest of takes also being the most extinguishable.
So we'll try where we're able to sweep under the table every grumble and fable from opening day ... ble.
You got that, Miss Mable? Will Venable? Mike Vrabel? I know, I know ... this is lame and unsustainable.
Just go, you know ... read. No need to be irritable.
Oh my gosh, Matt Davidson is amazing, and you idiots never told me about him
Probably because he's not amazing. It just so happens he can hit the ball a long way. And he did with great frequency even last year, homering 26 times in roughly two-thirds of a season. It's just that he walked only 16 times and struck out (gasp) 168 times (again, over two-thirds of a season).
Maybe he has room to grow still at 27, but he was also a strikeout machine at Triple-A Charlotte and hit .215 there over the last four years. His profile, as I understand it, makes his best-case scenario something like Rougned Odor's worst-case scenario, which as we saw last year is not so inviting. I mean, shoot, even Chris Carter would take a walk every now and then.
And let's not even mention the playing time concerns ...
Oh my gosh, Josh Donaldson is broken
Sure, he made some wimpy throws to first base, often failing to connect with the mitt of first baseman Justin Smoak, and it's an obvious concern after missing time with a shoulder injury this spring.
But we can't overlook the fact that ... he missed time with a shoulder injury this spring. He made only seven appearances at third base -- and these aren't full games, you understand. The Blue Jays have described his condition as "dead arm," which is basically one unprepared for the demands imposed on it. Maybe he just hasn't gotten enough reps yet.
"There are programs that we have and there are things that we're going to be able to do to get there," Donaldson told MLB.com, pointing out that it's better some days. And here's a much better throw from mid-spring:
Whatever the reason, the Blue Jays seem completely unmoved by it all, offering nothing more than that they may give Donaldson a little more time at DH to begin the year.
"Today, he just had to make a couple of off-balance throws, that's why it stood out," manager John Gibbons said. "I'm not particularly worried."
You, Donaldson owner, are free to worry, but if you act on that worry at a time when everyone is worried, you put yourself in a position to get ripped off.
Oh my gosh, Danny Duffy is also broken
Danny Duffy had his own shoulder issue this spring -- and more recently than Donaldson, even -- so it's fair to wonder if his arm is fully built up as well. He averaged about 91 mph on his fastball Thursday, 2 mph lower than last year, and since his longest spring start was only 4 1/3 innings, it's no wonder he fell apart in the fourth Thursday. His first three innings were hitless with five strikeouts.
Or maybe it was just one of those bad starts where the opposition hits three home runs. Those happen, you know. It's no reason to sound the alarm on its own. Combined with the shoulder issue, it's a little unsettling, but there's nothing actionable here.
Oh my gosh, Gabe Kapler is going to ruin Aaron Nola
As managerial debuts go, Kapler's was remarkably bad. He kept bucking conventional wisdom, which is part of the reason the Phillies hired him, and it blew up in his face every time.
The move that drew the ire of Fantasy owners, though, was his decision to remove his ace, who had allowed no runs to that point, after only 68 pitches. Now, it may have just been a start-of-the-season thing. Kapler didn't push Nola hard in spring training, and there's no reason to push him from the get-go either. It's also worth noting that Nola may have gotten a chance to finish the sixth inning if he hadn't allowed a double to Ender Inciarte.
But the data-based argument is an easy one. Nola allowed a .216 batting average the first time through the order last year, a .198 batting average the second time through and a .313 batting average with an .831 OPS the third time through. Given you Kapler's data-centric approach, you could see Nola having the shortest of leashes on that third time through.
Let's give it a month and reassess, though. And in the meantime, we can keep an eye on how Kapler handles Odubel Herrera, who sat in the opener.
Oh my gosh, Jose Martinez is best hitter the Cardinals have and couldn't possibly sit for whatever Gyorko they've stashed away
It's not such a hot take if it's one you already believed, and while I wouldn't have called Jose Martinez the Cardinals' best hitter before his three hits off Noah Syndergaard, he's up there. So seeing him in the lineup against one of the game's toughest right-handers, with Matt Carpenter sliding over to third base, was reason to believe the Cardinals may actually maximize his talents. And then he delivered -- not just the hits, but a home run.
The clincher is what came out later.
"He's our everyday guy," Oquendo told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Once in a while, he's going to get rest and we'll use Carp out there. But, for the most part, it looks like Martinez is going to be there every day."
So the only question at this point is if he's actually good, but seeing as he would have ranked fifth in line-drive rate and in the top 35 in hard-contact rate among qualifiers last year, with an above-average strikeout rate and all-fields approach that makes him particularly difficult to defend, I'm seeing a potential .300 hitter with the power for 20-25 home runs.
Oh my gosh, Jon Lester is finished
Look, nothing that happened opening day confirms or denies a statement of such finality, but when you already had suspicions coming in, as I did, the sight of his velocity dropping another mile per hour as he labored through the Triple-A lineup that the Marlins put out there doesn't inspire much confidence.
There's a point where I'd be willing to trade for Lester -- Adam Aizer suggested Kevin Gausman on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast, and that's fine -- but I'm not compelled to call him a buy-low candidate.
Oh my gosh, the humidor is pointless
First official game with the humidor in Arizona, and two balls leave the park. Yeah!
It's one game, merely a drop in the bucket of data that will determine what kind of hitting environment Chase Field has become. The results are meaningless on their own because they're susceptible to all the random variables that impact the outcome of any singular baseball game.
The two home runs weren't hit particularly far, but they weren't hit particularly hard either. The hardest-hit ball, a 106-mph screamer off the bat of Jake Lamb, still traveled 425 feet, hitting high off the center field wall. Would it have left the park pre-humidor? Maybe. Is the effect of the humidor also reflected in the exit velocities, making a comparison of exit velocity to distance traveled a useless exercise? I suspect it is.
It's too early to draw any real conclusions, but at least we know there will be some home runs there.
Oh my gosh, Fernando Rodney just lost his job
Simply wishing it so does not make it so, and Rodney has already taught us this lesson a thousand times over. Yeah, his Twins debut had him taking a loss in walk-off fashion, but the extent of the damage was a solo home run. This wasn't some epic meltdown that had EMTs checking the manager for a pulse. It wasn't part of some larger pattern. The Twins wouldn't have signed Rodney to be their closer if they intended to yank him at the first misfire.
Now, if he compiles a 12.60 ERA over the entire first month, as happened in Arizona last year, he may not get a chance to recover with Addison Reed on board. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Oh my gosh, Giancarlo Stanton is going to hit a million badillion home runs for the Yankees
This one might be spot on. Vegas has set the over/under at precisely a million badillion, in fact, but we shan't be surprised if he hits a million badillion and one.
Oh my gosh, Dylan Bundy has arrived
Maybe! If his first full season last year was any indication, Bundy's success is dependent on how often and how well he's throwing his slider. He threw it 24 times on 87 pitches Thursday, collecting an incredible 12 swinging strikes.
During the early and late stretches of last season when he threw his slider about 25 percent of the time (13 starts in all), he put together a 2.82 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 9.0 strikeouts per nine innings That's the hope for him this year. And while the earliest indications are good, note that he shied away from the slider during the summer months last year, resulting in a 5.61 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and 7.2 during a 15-start stretch.
Can't get too comfortable.
